The SitePoint Forums have moved.

You can now find them here.
This forum is now closed to new posts, but you can browse existing content.
You can find out more information about the move and how to open a new account (if necessary) here.
If you get stuck you can get support by emailing forums@sitepoint.com

If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Hard to contact website owners who violate copyright

I just recently found about 15 different websites using our comany name in thier PPC campaigns. Most of these website are nothing more than spammy search results pages. Doing a whois provides little information since they are all private registrations.

I have several options here and want to make sure I do the right ones first.
1. Leave it all upto the lawyers. (Expensive)
2. Call the offending registra and see if they can help me. (Time consuming)
3. Contact Google to get thier accounts banned. (Best Solution IMHO)

I personally just want to go to Google and get thier accounts banned. This would then allow me to keep track and if they do it again, i can get their accounts banned again after they switch names. Thus frustrating the crap out of them until they give up. (Evil Plan)

Your thread title says they're violating copyrights. Trademarks are not copyrights. When you're threatening people you need to know what you're talking about. Whether it's allowed or not is irrelevant. It's whether their use of your trademark is causing your company enough recoverable damage to be worth suing.

Neither will a registrar or host. They're not a party to any infringement suit, it's not their responsibility to take any action against someone advertising with your trademark. You have to deal with the advertisers yourself. First point is to make sure it's worth your time (is there a good reason to stop their ads?), and the second thing to do is see a lawyer and have him send a cease-and-desist order to each company.